


Grave Matters

by Microdigitalwaker



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Disabled Character, Friendship, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Married Life
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-16
Updated: 2019-11-27
Packaged: 2021-02-07 11:23:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21457258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Microdigitalwaker/pseuds/Microdigitalwaker
Summary: It's the 5th anniversary of Joss Carter's death.Nick and Bill receive an unexpected invitation.
Relationships: Nicholas Donnelly/Bill Szymanski
Comments: 5
Kudos: 5





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cognomen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cognomen/gifts).

> A gift for Cognomen, who loves Nick, Bill and and Calvin as much as me.

Bill Szymanski sits at the scarred linoleum kitchen table for two, sorting the days mail while keeping an eye half-cocked on the roasted chicken cooling on the top of the stove. From the corner of his eye, he senses an orange, creeping blurr. He crumples an empty envelope from one of several residual checks. Using skills he'd honed first as a Marine and then as a cop, he launches his missile just as Calvin leaps.

Resigned, the huge marmalade cat jumps onto Bill's lap instead of on top of the chicken. He makes his displeasure known by digging his claws through Bill's old green corduroys. Bill scratches Calvin's ears.

"You never give up, do you?"

Calvin replies with a loud, rusty purr that brings to mind chainsaws, Bill continues sorting the mail, making a happy little stack of the day's checks from their wildly popular mystery series.

The books, eight so far, feature a passionate married pair guys, one a police detective and the other an FBI man, both retired because getting shot a bunch gets you put to pasture like a pair of limping horses. They and their cat keep busy finding corpses to sleuth. Not to mention sex, lots of sex.

It's extremely satisfying observing their shared bank accounts start to bulge as much as poor Calvin's belly and now that their first mystery is being made into a movie (starring Mart Damon! and Mark Ruffalo!), they can start seriously thinking about a summer place in the Adirondacks.

"Maybe a winter place, too," Bill tells Calvin as he leans heavily on the kitchen to stand. He doesn't need his cane, not inside. He drains the pot of boiling potatoes, adding butter, salt and a dash of black pepper. The milk comes later, after the potatoes are thoroughly smashed. 

Bill covers the potatoes after adding one more pat of butter to melt on the surface, not because it needs more but because Nick likes the way it looks.

Returning to the mail, he opens an envelope that stands out from the rest with its creamy, thick (linen?) paper and the calligraphy of the address. Bill runs his finger over the script and confirms it's by hand.

There are two sheets of paper inside, one of the same as the envelope and the other looks like plain copy paper, with a sprawling, strangely familiar handwriting.  
  
He reads this first.


	2. Chapter 2

He squints at the unfolded sheet of copy paper then reached for his 'cheaters', the drugstore reading glasses he's needed post-recovery.

'Hey Alphabet!'

Blinking, holding back a smile, he puts down the sheet and turns towards Calvin.

"Alphabet? Now that's a name I've not heard in a long, long time."

Calvin, who has always been inordinately fond of Bill's Alec Guiness, stretches luxuriously before climbing onto Bill's shoulders. Bill laughs, which turns into a deep, hoarse cough that leaves Calvin scrambling. The pneumonia, which he's susceptible to because of what one of the bullets had done to his right lung, was done, vanquished, but not the deep cough that leaves him weak enough to need the steadying of a cane. Nick is his proxy, dealing with all the real world, face-to-face business of life; it's embarrassing, how easily he's adapting to a world where the only violence is in the pages of their writing.

Only one person still calls him Alphabet, the man who had given him the nickname at the police academy. Lionel Fusco, who had taken one look at Bill's name tag and had laughed. The same Fusco who had one night risked a lingering glance at Bill in his scivies, who hadn't looked away when Bill had locked eyes with him, gesturing towards the dark end of the barrack's locker room with a jerk of his chin.

'Hey, Alphabet! It's been a long time and I hope you and Nick and that infernal orange hellbeast are well. I'm guessing you'll read this first so I'll explain that the fancy card is an invitation to join us and some of Joss Carter's friends to visit her tomorrow seeing how it's the 5th anniversary of her passing...'

Bill glances at the card. It specifies tomorrow's date, a minor miracle considering the city's lackluster postal services. Curious, he turns the envelope to check the postmark and is surprised to find no sign of a stamp having ever been applied. He grins, imagining Fusco picking the lock of their postbox in the building's lobby, tricky enough to get into the building in the first place. It would seem that this invitation was last minute or was there any other reason?

Continuing to read: 'Joss liked you both a heck of a lot, used to say, Bill, that you were someone she trusted, which was the best sort of compliment she gave. And Nick, well, I know for a fact that misleading him made her sick inside and she wished things had been different. Hell, if she had joined up with the FBI, maybe she'd still be with us. What I'm getting at, real clumsy, is that we understand if Nick doesn't want to join us but it would be a _mitzvah_ if you were both there.

One last thing, if you make it, please leave your crime fighting hats at home. Joss cast a pretty wide net when it came to making friends and a graveyard isn't the place for drawing guns and making arrests. your pal, Lionel'

As he puts down the letter, Bill hears the rattle of keys at the door. Nick's home and Calvin dashes to greet him.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note that the rating has gone up to 'E'.

Nick Donnelly unceremoniously dumps his luggage on the floor so that he can scoop Calvin into his arms. In the kitchen, if you could call the closet-sized room by such a grand a title, Bill can hear his husband cooing. "Who's my little prince? Who?"

"I'm not a cat person," Nick likes to say. "I'm a Calvin person."

It's been a week since Nick had left for meetings in Los Angeles.

"Confounded lawyers out the wazoo,"Nick had grumbled before bestowing a noisy smooch on Bill's cheek. "The only good thing about going away is coming back to you."

"I made dinner. We can eat now or..."

""Or," Nick replies before taking Bill's face in his hands, tilting it down as he tips up so that their lips meet in the middle as the cat manages to bridge their shoulders, purring furiously as they kiss.

Bill had the forethought to leave a folded towel and bottle of lube on the tiny coffee table of their postage stamp-sized living room so that once their dinner is hastily stowed in the oven it's time for business.

He sits, pulling off his tshirt and sweats as he watches Nick strips down from the stale, crumpled suit he'd donned for the crosscountry flight.

Nick's got a dad bod now, the scars from his near-death covering chest and shoulders that are still broad but there are little love handles to go with a belly that's soft instead of six packed.

It drives Bill wild. Despite his crappy health, his hands and his dick are strong and he just manages to slick himself before Nick, who is straddling him, slides all the way down with a deep bass groan that almost sets off Bill's fireworks then and there. Nick grinds down hard, his eyelashes fluttering, his mouth open as he takes deep, shuddering breathes.

Entranced, Bill milks Nick's dick, which is as thick and sturdy as the man, until his fingers are shiny. He dabs a little stripe along the cleft of Nick's chin before slicking his lips with salty precum but instead of kissing Nick, as was his plan, he slides his forefinger and middle finger into his mouth.

"Suck."


End file.
